Native Speaker
by Chang-Rae Lee
List Price: $12.95
Pages: 349
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1573225312
Publisher: Riverhead Books
In Native Speaker, author Chang-rae Lee introduces readers to Henry Park.
Park has spent his entire life trying to become a true American -- a native
speaker. But even as the essence of his adopted country continues to elude
him, his Korean heritage seems to drift further and further away.
Park's harsh Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emotions, to remember everything
he learns, and most of all to feel an overwhelming sense of alienation.
In other words, it has shaped him as a natural spy.
But the very attributes that help him to excel in his profession put a strain on his marriage
to his American wife and stand in the way of his coming to terms with
his young son's death. When he is assigned to spy on a rising Korean-American
politician, his very identity is tested, and he must figure out who he
is amid not only the conflicts within himself but also within the ethnic
and political tensions of the New York City streets.
Native Speaker is a story of cultural alienation. It is about fathers and sons, about the
desire to connect with the world rather than stand apart from it, about
loyalty and betrayal, about the alien in all of us and who we finally
are.
top of the page
1. As you review the list Lelia compiles of who Henry is (p. 5), which descriptions strike
you as the most accurate? The most disturbing? The hardest for Lelia to
accept? What characterization might you add to the list yourself? What
does Lelia mean by the accusation scribbled on the scrap piece of paper
under their bed: "False speaker of language" (p. 6)? Why could
this be considered Henry's greatest fault, and his greatest transgression
against his wife? How is it possible that a man who "on paper, by
any known standard, was an impeccable mate" (pp. 160-161) could be
failing his wife so miserably?
2. How does Dr. Luzan unknowingly break down the surface "opacity" (p. 133) Henry
has acquired through his experience of working with Hoagland? Would a
subject other than an older Asian male have had the same unsettling effect
on Henry? How does this assignment begin the process of eroding Henry's
professional commitment and confidence? Explain what Henry means when
he says, "I can no longer simply flash a light inside a character,
paint a figure like Kwang with a momentary language" (p. 206).
3. The adult Henry recalls of his childhood: "My self-conception was that I was frail"
(p. 135). Why, despite Henry's intense emotional involvement with
his father, does he identify so strongly with his mother? What is his
mother afraid of, and how does she transmit that fear to her son?
4. How do Lelia and Henry each react to Mitt's death? What do their different responses
reveal about their characters? To what degree are their reactions based
on personality and what degree are they based on each character's
cultural background? Who or what does each parent believe is to blame
for this tragic occurrence?
5. On rare occasions, Henry addresses the reader directly, as "you," for example:
"We will learn every lesson of accent and idiom, we will dismantle
every last pretense and practice you hold, noble as well as ruinous. You
can keep nothing safe from our eyes and ears. This is your own history.
We are your most perilous and dutiful brethren, the song of hearts at
once furious and sad" (p. 320). What emotions prompt Henry to speak
pointedly to the novel's reader? What was your reaction to this passage
from the book? Why do you think the author employs this device? Why does
he use it so seldom?
6. What do you think Henry means when he says of his colleagues Grace and Pete, "We are
friends in the way people in an unprovisioned lifeboat are" (p. 319)?
Does he agree with Jack, who believes that all of Hoagland's employees
are a family? Why does Henry feel indifferent to whether Jack betrays
him? At the novel's conclusion, does Henry feel, as his father did,
that the only family is one of blood?
7. In the early phase of Henry's employment at Hoagland's firm, why does Henry believe
he has "finally found [his] truest place in the culture" (p.
127)? How do Henry's working under cover and exploiting his own people
constitute "the darkest version of what [his immigrant father] only
dreamed of" (p. 334)? How does Henry's spy career function in
the novel as a metaphor for cultural assimilation?
8. What are the major similarities between Kwang and Henry's father? What are their major
differences? Why are these two men tightly intertwined in Henry's
mind and heart? What does Henry unexpectedly come to see in Kwang, which
Henry "will search out now for the long remainder of [his] days"
(p. 141)?
9. Henry's attitudes toward his Korean heritage are complex and conflicted. How do they affect
his feelings about having a son of mixed blood? Which aspects of his father's
emotional legacy does Henry hope will live on in himself and in Mitt?
Which of his family's characteristics does he feel would be better
off "diluted" in his offspring? Why does Henry feel that Mitt
was blessed to have had Leila's genes and her daily emotional influence
in his life?
10. At the novel's conclusion, why does Henry appear to derive joy from his position assisting
Lelia? How does her approach to speech therapy differ from the lessons
Henry was taught as a child (see p. 233)? How has Lelia's life with
Henry and Mitt influenced the way she relates to her students?
top of the page
